I Stalk Myself

We’re talking 1970-71. Is there really someone out who knows my career details from 35 plus years ago? Wow!

It’s true, I stalk myself. Google searches for me across the Internet and when it finds a new listing it sends me an email with the link. Thanks Sergey and Larry.

I don’t get that many hits, but every once in a while it’s something juicy. People forget they’re speaking in public. They don’t realize Google reads sparsely traveled boards.

This was posted around a month ago. It was part of a conversation about West Palm Beach radio.

Before that it was WGMW a rock station, co-owned by Tom Kegel (sp) ex of WIRK. He brought over Geoff Fox ex WIRK, WQXT, WMUM and now a TV weatherman in CT. The odd thing was that they had a night time talk show with an older ex-NY radio guy known as Half beard. Apparently in his early days his stunt had been to shave 1/2 his face

We’re talking 1970-71. This guy has just correctly named four stations I worked at. Is there really someone out who knows my career details from 35 plus years ago? Wow!

The guy with the, then, clean shaven face was Mitch Sandler. He had been Professor Half Beard in an earlier incarnation. I don’t remember his air style, except he was older, smart and very liberal. There were a lot of very liberal people back then. Mitch passed away a long time ago.

This was an interesting station. Physically, we had glassed in studios at a failed mall with little traffic in Riviera Beach, Florida. We were automated, meaning tapes and cartridges fired in sequence or by timer. I designed the format and it was impossible to tell we weren’t live. It was a mostly (not totally) dependable system from Shaffer, who served mostly beautiful music stations back then.

To save money, the owners had me do the morning show, but work all-night. Then, they’d forget to saunter in until 9:30 or 10:00 O’clock. Maybe some day I’ll forget that treatment.

Tonight’s other Google tip was for a more recent post by someone who calls himself “TheNews”

“WTNH’s Geoff Fox Out?,” “His bio is off the WTNH site. It would be sad he’s been there since 1984!”

It would, wouldn’t it? This was a screw-up at the station. They redesigned a webpage and left me off. It happens.

“His pic is still on the storm team 8 banner on top. And other graphics. I never really cared for Geoff Fox. At least at Channel 3 when Hilton left they gave him a be party at the end of the newscast and everything,” – Ken.

For those skimming, Ken didn’t care for me. Hilton is Hilton Kaderli, formerly of WFSB in Hartford and an icon in this market. I’m glad to have him as a friend.

I would be lying if I said Ken’s opinion of me doesn’t make me cringe a little. It’s part of my job and I accept it–but grudgingly.

On the other hand, there’s stuff like this from “oldschooltv”

“I think he was on vacation last week (see his blog: geofffox.com). Personally, I like Geoff. Forecasting in Connecticut is not easy with all the various micro-climates we have due to the hills, valleys, inland, shoreline, etc. He knows our area well and has been around for a long time. They’d be crazy to ever get rid of him.”

This is eavesdropping, right?

At the moment, I’m wondering how many of my co-workers and contemporaries do the same thing with Google? I have no clue. I wonder if Hilton will see this?

Reports Of My Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

Dan Desjardins, from Weather Central in Madison, WI, called me. He was worried, because word was out I’d been fired!

The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated. -Mark Twain

Though this story starts back in May, I didn’t even know there was a story until yesterday. Dan Desjardins, from Weather Central in Madison, WI, called me. He was worried, because word was out I’d been fired!

A website called tvjobs.com listed me as “on the beach.”

Had they called and asked, or sent an email? No. It’s not like I’m that difficult to find.

I went to see my boss. “Uh, Kirk, have I been fired, but no one’s told me yet,” I asked? He smiled… but it was a good smile.

Truth is, back in the early 70s I received a call from my friend Bob Lacey. He’d heard I’d been fired from my job in Cleveland. Only, it didn’t happen until the next day!

That was a pretty crappy day.

So, how does this happen? In this case tvjobs probably took a shortcut when they saw WTNH’s website change. For some odd reason, my picture disappeared from its page with the other meteorologists.

Our webmaster, Jeff Bailey, said, “Looks to me like it was accidently archived at the end of May.” As big an ego as I have, I don’t look to see my picture on the station’s website. Who knew?

My boss, Kirk Varner, fired off an email.

To whom it may concern at TVJobs.com:

We don’t subscribe to your site, so I can’t verify this personally—but I have it from multiple sources that you are listing WTNH staff meteorologist Geoff Fox as being no longer employed by WTNH (as in “On The Beach”.)

Assuming you are not referring to Mr. Fox’s recreation choices, this information is incorrect and needs to be updated immediately. Mr. Fox is still in the employ of WTNH as he has been in the last 24 years, and a simple check with his employer (that would be me) would have verified this information in less than five minutes.

As I can find no press or internet posting suggesting that Mr. Fox’s employment status has recently changed, perhaps you could also enlighten us as to the source of your information as part of your apology and retraction to both Mr. Fox and this station?

As far as I know, Kirk hasn’t heard back. However, as of today tvjobs requires readers to click through an advisory. Dan, who first brought this to my attention, found this change today. “Now they make you click on a disclaimer about “on the beach” listings before you can look at them. They “clarified” that on-the-beach means the individual has “dropped off the stations web site” And, they’ve changed the text with my photo.

I’ll let you know when my apology arrives. Don’t stay up.

Blowing The Forecast

This entry has been edited because, it has been pointed out, most of the state was properly forecast by me… just not the city where the station sits.

I went to work Sunday night, handling the forecasting details on-the-air. A storm was brewing.

Though my call was significantly below the Weather Service and was the lowest snow prediction in the state (as usual), the forecast busted on parts of the shoreline&#185. Thankfully, my low number call was good for most of inland Connecticut.

After two hours of sleet and mixed precipitation, New Haven had six straight hours of snow at the airport… but no accumulation. The ground was too warm or too wet and the snow was already close to melting as it approached the surface.

Schools were closed. People cancelled appointments. There had been snow in the sky, but without impact.

Here’s part of an email I received:

I’ve been watching WTNH more years than I care to remember. I think the habit you have of hyping a storm coming our way is unacceptable. I’m at the point now where if I watch the weather forecast and you are the weather forecaster, I can rest assured it won’t happen. May I make a suggestion, refrain from the excitement you seem to possess, when a storm is headed our way make sure you are reasonably correct before you announce the worst scenario. With all your modern equipment you are no more correct than my father was when he went outside and looked up at the sky.

My first words at 11:00 PM were, “My wife asked me not to scare everyone,” which is what I tried to do. Of course with the Weather Service’s “HEAVY SNOW WARNING” in effect, it was tough to avoid.

Yesterday, I went on the air and apologized. I don’t know if it will make the viewers feel better. It helps me.

Bill Evans from WABC was quoted in the NY Daily News today:

“I feel like I let the public down. We didn’t get it right. At the same time, we worked as hard as we could to get it right.”

Exactly, though Bill’s bust was orders of magnitude bigger than mine.

It’s not just the forecast was wrong. It’s that it was wrong in spite of doing everything we could do to get it right. Going back, I probably would have made the same forecast. In fact, a meteorologist friend was giving me reasons to raise the numbers just before air time (I resisted).

This is the most frustrating part of what is normally a fun job. I want people to trust me. No one wants to drop the ball. No one wants to get those emails. No one wants to be quoted in an article, as Bill Evans was, titled “Now that was a flaky weather forecast

&#185 – The rest of the state’s forecast – covering 90% of the landmass and around 75% of the populace, was accurate.

The Problem With Being Quoted

Abe Katz wrote a winter outlook story for yesterday’s New Haven Register. I was one of the ‘experts’ quoted.

Let’s just say my quotes weren’t the ones you’d put in the first paragraph.

What does this mean?

Not a whole lot, said Geoff Fox, meteorologist at WTNH. “I’m a real non-believer in long term forecasts,” he said.

My problem, however, comes with a quote deeper in the article. I’m not sure whether I was misquoted or just didn’t say exactly what I meant.

There are two problems, Fox said: The forecasts are not accurate, and people live day to day, not season to season.

“If someone said it would be 3 degrees below normal for three months, how would that change your life?” Fox said

What I meant to say, or possibly did say, was:

“If someone said it would be 3 degrees below normal for three months, how would that change your life day-to-day?”

Adding day-to-day makes all the difference, because you would notice a season that’s three degrees below normal. That small temperature difference would take marginal rain days and make them snow days. Your heating bill would be significantly higher. You just wouldn’t notice it on any particular day.

It’s a tiny difference in meaning, but a significant one.

Continue reading “The Problem With Being Quoted”

The 23&#162 Check

Hidden away somewhere, Helaine and I have 300 shares of Disney stock.

When I first came to New Haven, WTNH was owned by Capitol Cities Communications, which bought ABC, which was then bought by Disney (or maybe it was the other way around – who remembers). We thought it was a well run company, we bought some shares.

Today we received a notice. Disney has sold their radio station holdings to Citadel Broadcasting. Since Helaine and I are among Disney’s de facto owners, we will benefit.

Our 300 Disney shares gets us 23.038839 shares of Citadel stock. They won’t let you own fractional shares, so our stake was rounded down to 23 shares. We got a check to cover the rest.

It’s a check for 23&#162!

It’s surely just boilerplate, but on the check is the inscription, “only twenty three cents.” “Only!” Don’t you think that’s a little judgmental?

I know this stuff happens all the time. I remember, thirty years ago, my friend Peter Mokover’s parents had a 1&#162 check from LILCO hanging on the wall of their beach house on Fire Island.

What is the real cost of our check? It surely cost more than 23&#162 to print and stuff it in an envelope. It cost more than 23&#162 for postage. It will cost my bank more than 23&#162 to process it. Citadel’s bank has processing costs too.

The check comes attached to a form explaining the whole thing. It says “Retain for your records.” Yeah, I don’t want to serve time if I forget to declare this.

I hate to propose anything that might smack of corporate welfare, but maybe it’s OK to let companies off the hook for this little stuff. We are going through the motions and no one actually gains in this transaction.

Actually, let me take that back. I got a blog entry out of it.

Another Mention In Print

Wow – two print mentions in the past week. This time Joe Amarante of the New Haven Register called to ask about our lack of winter.

I’m not sure “alarmist crap” is be a phrase I’d use again for attribution. It was inelegant and crude. Unfortunately, it’s an accurate quote. Sometimes stuff just comes out.

I think writers, like Joe and Charlie Walsh at the Connecticut Post (who quoted me last week), have a distinct advantage over TV people. We need to haul our sorry butts to the scene of the crime. Newspaper people can just pick up the phone and interview a half dozen people in the time it takes us to drive to some far off little town.

Continue reading “Another Mention In Print”

Thanks For A Great Year

Thank you so much for visiting my website in 2006. I would have forgotten to write this had Helaine not reminded me.

I enjoy writing. The blog helped me discover that. It has also made me a better writer and re-writer. Rewriting has been my biggest surprise, because that’s when the entries really come together.

Still, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t enjoying quantifying your presence.

Here are some ‘back of the envelope’ calculations (really – I used an envelope). It looks like my daily traffic is up approximately 30% over last year. I must have posted a lot more multimedia files, because at the same time I’m using 40% more bandwidth.

In 2006 this site served over 118 gigabytes of stuff. That’s ridiculous. It’s more than you could fit on a couple dozen DVDs!

For a simple blog, this site does well. That people have found it is somewhat organic. As far as I know, it’s only been mentioned once on TV, and that by an fill-in anchor who didn’t realize she really shouldn’t.

Some of my traffic comes from new readers of my home page. People come and go all the time.

Some traffic also comes simply because there is so much more indexed by the search engines. There are at least 500 pages on this site that weren’t here a year ago and each has been seen by Google, Yahoo!, MSN and their brethern.

My home page has a Google page rank of 5. WTNH.com has a 6. The New Haven Register has a 4. Sorry Register.

I keep saying I’m going to move the blog from its current host, but the process seems so daunting, I just leave it where it is. It’s also running out-of-date software.

Maybe this year? Probably not. I am very good at procrastination.

Thanks also to those of you who left comments. Often they are thought provoking. I never know whether to respond or not. If I’ve left you hanging, I apologize.

Geez – look at the time. Even I need to get to bed at some point.

Bluetooth And Me

Before I left for Maine, I was interviewed by Jim Shelton for a New Haven Register story concerning Bluetooth technology.

Blue Angels Flight Video

On February 22, 1997, I had the opportunity to strap myself into an F/A 18 and fly with the Navy’s Blue Angels.

On February 22, 1997, I had the opportunity to strap myself into an F/A 18 and fly with the Navy’s Blue Angels.

I flew in the number 7 plane, a 2-place jet. There was a fixed camera pointing back at me capturing video of the flight.

The video of my Blue Angels flight ran on both WTNH and the SciFi Channel and is an amazingly constant request from Google users.

Here is the takeoff sequence from that day in El Centro, CA.



Thanksgiving Recap

I am just beginning to reenter the world of the living. Going to New York was a major shock to my system because of the one day schedule upheaval. I went to work a few hours before I normally wake up.

It was well worth it. Make no mistake about that. I had a great time, in spite of the weather.

Steffie accepted my offer and came along. While I caught a few hours sleep Wednesday evening, she decided to just stretch her day. By 1:15 AM Thanksgiving morning we were getting into a town car for the ride to Manhattan.

The ride started under cloudy skies, but by the time we got to Bridgeport, it was snowing. The snow was light at first, but before the New York line it was covering the road.

The town car blasted along between 65 and 75. I was beginning to get a little panicky. I didn’t want us to be the first Thanksgiving highway statistic!

As we moved through Westchester and into the Bronx, the snow turned to sleet and quickly to rain. Now the highway was just wet.

I asked the driver to stick to the West Side because I assumed some streets would be closed for parade preparations. We headed down the Henry Hudson Parkway, past the beautiful George Washington Bridge. At night the lattice of the bridge’s towers are lit, making it look like a gigantic model bridge. It’s too good looking to be real or functional.

Traffic was light as we transitioned from the Henry Hudson to the West Side Highway. We were doing 74 mph when the cop caught us on radar!

I’ve never been pulled over in New York. It’s an experience. There’s no shoulder on the highway to safely stop, so the cop called through a loudspeaker, telling us to pull off at the next exit.

I got antsy and wanted to intercede. Steffie, wisely, kept me in check. As it turned out, the limo driver had things well in control.

Unbeknown to us, he had a small metal NYPD shield in his wallet. His cousin is a cop in Midtown Manhattan (or so he said – does it really matter). Under the unwritten law of professional courtesy, the officer acted angry, asked the driver if he knew how fast he was going and then walked away. Just like that. Holy cow – those things do work!

My instructions from ABC said to meet at 79th Street and Central Park West. There was no way to drive there, so we got out at 77th and Columbus.

IMG_3112I talked my way past a young guy standing security at Columbus Avenue, only to get questioned again at Central Park West. This person was tall, unhappy, and actually speaking into his wrist! When I asked if he was with the police or Macy’s he said, “Both.”

He was a little more thorough, wanting to see some ID. I don’t have an NYPD press pass, but I did have my Channel 8 ID. He looked at it for a few milliseconds and said OK – but he’d accompany us.

We headed uptown, past workers getting ready to march. We walked by the stately, somewhat Goth, Museum of Natural History. When we got to the next corner it was 81st Street.

There is no 79th and Central Park West! Uh oh.

I called Chika, my producer. She too was on her way. She asked me to stay put until she got there. Steffie and I stood under my umbrella in the rain. We were next to the Manhattan North command post and there was a constant buzz of activity.

When Chika got there, we realized not only was there no 79th and CPW – there was no live truck! I was standing there wondering if we’d get on the air at all. That thought only lasted a few seconds, because this type of logistical miscue happens all the time. Somehow, it always works… well almost always.

IMG_3014The truck ended up on Park Drive South, with a long cable run to the parade. The photographer, Mark, set up and we were ready to go.

Before leaving Connecticut I had cut the audio for a package on the parade. That track was for timing. Now, in the truck, using the strangest looking microphone I’d even seen, I recut it with better audio.

Along the curb, camera after camera after camera set up. All the local New York stations were there, as was GMA (ABC, but separate from us) and Today.

As shot, each reporter stood with the street behind him. Truth is, we were all shoulder-to-shoulder-to shoulder.

IMG_3083Let me take a second to apologize for anyone near me Thanksgiving morning. I project… OK, I am loud. It must have been tough for the reporters next to me, because I’m sure they heard me. Disconcerting, no doubt.

I cut a tag for World News Now, ABC’s overnight show, and then the live shots began.

It didn’t begin smoothly. The IFB system (IFB for interrupt feedback, describes the communications system that allows me to hear both the TV station in another city and its producer) was flawed. I was hearing a few syllables at a time and then silence. Something was there, but it wasn’t usable.

The first few live shots ended up being me fronting my package without interaction with the local anchors. I couldn’t speak with them, because I couldn’t hear them.

It wasn’t long before the IFB was squared away and we started ‘servicing the affiliates.&#185’

IMG_3090Here’s how it works. Chika speaks to the producer via cellphone. My IFB gets switched so I can hear their ‘air.’ We go over the names of the anchors and who I’ll be speaking with. Sometimes, if while waiting to go on I hear a weather forecaster mention local weather, I’d ask Chika to get his/her name.

Once on, I ad libbed a little about what was going on and then tossed to the package. On the way out I’d talk about the forecast of wind or let the anchors see the new Scooby Doo balloon resting across the street.

We did live hit after live hit after live hit. Sixteen separate shots over the morning. It was great!

I suppose you might say I’m a live TV slut. It’s a rush – a seat of the pants experience each and every time. I have called it crack for middle aged white guys.

IMG_3030After it was all done, the folks at ABC NewsOne thanked me. I appreciate that. But, the truth is, maybe they were doing me the favor. It’s a job I enjoy doing and they gave me the opportunity to do it from a great location, on a fun story, on stations all across the country.

The icing on the cake was going there with Steffie. I introduced her early on as my daughter. As the morning wore on, and other people came and went, she was just accepted as part of our crew. It’s nice to see her as a grownup and to see other people see her that way.

Liveshot rundown:

-- 0430 World News This Morning

-- 0515 WFTV - Orlando

-- 0545 WJLA - Washington

-- 0550 WTNH - New Haven

-- 0615 WFTV - Orlando

-- 0620 WTNH - New Haven

-- 0640 WCPO - Cincinnati

-- 0645 WJLA - Washington

-- 0650 WTNH - New Haven

-- 0705 WTNH - New Haven

-- 0720 WLS - Chicago

-- 0740 WTNH - New Haven

-- 0800 KABC - Los Angeles

-- 0820 KXTV - Sacramento

-- 0840 KNXV - Phoenix

-- 0900 KABC - Los Angeles

&#185 – When I ran into Al Roker and told him I was there ‘servicing the affiliates’, we both smiled. It does have that stud horse implication.

Quoted In The Norwich Bulletin

I think I’ve become the low hanging fruit of weather quotes. I was included in an article published today in the Norwich Bulletin.

Use the link above if you want to read it, though I’m attaching it to the jump should that link go stale.

Continue reading “Quoted In The Norwich Bulletin”

I’m More Pessimistic About Hurricanes

Recently I was interviewed for an article in Business New Haven concerning hurricanes. I’ve linked to the text.

Over time I’ve become more pessimistic of what might happen in a repeat of the hurricane of ’38 scenario for Connecticut. There would be little time for warning and difficulty explaining where the damage might occur.

Even in 2005, a tragedy seems unavoidable. That’s not what I want to say, but it is a realistic expectation.

I’m glad to see, though Dr. Mel Goldstein and I were interviewed separately (I didn’t even know he had been interviewed), we are in agreement with our concern.

Unlike Katrina where good advice was ignored, I’m not sure what we could do today to help prepare us for a hurricane approaching us at 60 mph. The entire East Coast would need warning. What good would that do?

Continue reading “I’m More Pessimistic About Hurricanes”

My Favorite Misconception

It used to be all I had to worry about was that rumor I colored my hair. Nope – never. I’ve got lots of gray sprinkled in there, but it just isn’t seen on TV and I’m not sure why. But the rumor persists.

Tonight I got this email from my friend/physician Steve with new rumors.

He said you’ve only got your job “because your family owns the network.” When I pursued this further, he told me that your family owns the Fox Network (it should only be, right?)

When I pointed out that WTNH isn’t part of the Fox Network AND that I happen to know your father and (1) he hasn’t got that kind of money and (2) his name isn’t Rupert Murdoch, he stopped. For a moment.

But then he said, “and [your] father-in-law is Dr. Mel!!!”

Does Helaine know that? Did you? I asked where he got this information and he said he heard it a long time ago. I told him that I knew for a fact that he was wrong about that, too (he either thinks that you’re really young or Dr Mel is much much much older.)

Isn’t this crazy? That’s the first I’ve heard about the Fox Network, but I get the Dr. Mel father-in-law question all the time. Both, of course, not true.

Where do these things get started? In fact, why would anyone care enough to start something like this?

I often worry about the hair coloring rumor, because I don’t want people to think I’m trying to scam them by being something I’m not.

I visited the Fox lot this summer. trust me, if I owned the network, I would have had a much better parking spot.

New Haven Advocate Best Of

I was very pleased to hear I’d won the New Haven Advocate’s Best Of Readers’ Poll. Though I usually pick up the Advocate when I get coffee at Roberto’s, I missed the voting issue so I didn’t even have a chance to stuff the ballot box.

That this is a vote by viewers makes it all the more gratifying.

There are some interesting, nearly dubious, honors bestowed. Some categories are split so many ways that you’d better get something. And, I totally understand that the Advocate does this as an advertising booster (look in the print issue and see all the back slapping ads). It’s still nice.

Christopher Arnott, who I’ve known for years, wrote my little blurb – and now I’m blushing.

Tonight is the ‘get your award’ dinner, and I’ll be going. I’ll bring my camera.

Best Local TV Personality

Geoff Fox, WTNH Channel 8

Geoff Fox stops by the Advocate offices in the early afternoon. The energy of the 9-to-5ers in the room is starting to lag, but Fox is wide-eyed, funny, fresh, loud-voiced, glad-handed–the life of the party.

He woke up about an hour earlier. His workday’s just begun.

“Basically I live my life in Hawaiian time. I wake up at noon, and I don’t get home until midnight. I’m used to people calling me and waking me up. I liked it when I had a friend living in Singapore; he’s the only one who’d call me when I was at the right time.”

Geoff Fox has weathered that rough-and-tumble schedule for over 20 years as a weatherman, and he’s been a broadcast professional since 1969. And despite cleaning up annually as Advocate readers’ choice for Best Local TV Personality, he’s still improving his job prospects, studying meteorology for the past three years.

Geoff Fox New Haven Advcoate photo

One thing that makes Geoff Fox so engaging in person is his quick wit, and it’s a skill he’s able to use on the air. “I get to do stand-up. I get to ad-lib. I’m the only one who works without a script.” Some of his best exchanges are with the Channel 8 directors and cameramen; he’s like a comedian who delights in cracking up the house band. “For me, it has a lot to do with growing up watching George Burns, Soupy Sales and Sandy Becker,” TV comics who loved to break the fourth wall and display the nuts and bolts of the TV set.

Offscreen, he engages with viewers via his weblog, for which he’s already penned over 1,100 entries. A self-admitted tech geek, Fox has built a few computers himself, and he has connected another of his passions–poker–to the net by playing an online game through a casino in Costa Rica, almost tripling his initial investment.

It’s a life well lived, on air at 5, 6 & 11 p.m. (plus 10 p.m. on Channel 8’s sister station, WTXX) and “on” constantly from noon until his wee-hours bedtime.

On the same page: Yale wins the Best Local Four-Year College category. Who woulda thunk it?

Blogger’s note: The writeup says I’m on WTXX, but our 10:00 PM news is on WCTX, channel 9 on most cable systems.

Another Nice Mention in the Day

I spoke to Rick Koster at the New London Day yesterday. He was writing a story about weathermen and comments their viewers make, and asked me to participate. I’m always scared I might say something I’ll later regret. This one came out very nicely.

I’ve attached the story to the link below

Snow Rage?

Just Blame It On The Weathermen, They’re Used To It

�There will be no school tomorrow. At least I’ll be a hero to kids.� – Geoff Fox, WTNH Channel 8 weatherman

By RICK KOSTER
Day Staff Columnist, Arts & Entertainment
Published on 3/1/2005

Something irritating this way comes.

It was Monday afternoon and the clouds were the opaque gray of a killer’s eyes. The Nor’easter was roaring up the Atlantic Coast and forecasters were describing a weather system that would utilize the Connecticut shore as a sort of tightrope between heavy rain and snow, or both.

Among area meteorologists, the mood was a cross between the excitement wrought of any storm and the anxiety that comes with predicting tough and complex systems. After all, at this point in the season, the citizenry can be a bit testy � and need someone to blame the weather on.

�It’s the nature of the game,� said Matt Scott, a meteorologist at WTNH in New Haven who called the impending Nor’easter �a complicated one.�

�This is a troublesome storm,� he said. �This is the first storm of the winter where I think we could see some power outages.�

That would certainly increase the potential for public dissatisfaction.

�Well, we’ve had a lot of snow � more than average � and when we’re a little off the mark some folks get agitated,� Scott said.

Geoff Fox, one of Scott’s meteorological colleagues at WTNH, who has worked in the area for 20 years, is more than familiar with irate weather-followers blaming the messenger. He remembered several years ago when a tourist board in Cape Cod was upset with him because members thought Fox’s long-range forecasts, which in this part of the country usually included a day of rain, were affecting business. They theorized Connecticut residents would not make the trip to the Cape if Fox suggested inclement weather.

Another time: �I was collared by a guy who owned a car wash where I used to take my car,� Fox remembered. �He didn’t like weather forecasts that could hurt his business. I tried to kid around, but he had no sense of humor and I came to believe, in his case, that he had some connections and could actually hurt me. So I get my car washed somewhere else now.�

Fox will presumably not worry about the aesthetics of his car over the next few days. He said Monday afternoon that the Nor’easter was pushing farther and farther to the east. Since snow systems have a relative warm and cold side � the cold is to the west � each turn to the east increases the likelihood that southeastern Connecticut will get more snow.

�There will be no school tomorrow,� Fox said. �At least I’ll be a hero to kids.�

Today’s technology makes it easier for viewers to convey their irritation with meteorologists.

�E-mails are easy to fire off; there are no faces or identities attached,� said Bruce DePrest, chief meteorologist at WFSB in Hartford. �The sender might even be mad at a forecast from another station, but any weatherman will do. Anything can trigger it, too � the timing of a storm, calling for snow and getting rain. … A lot of things make people mad, and sometimes they just want to be annoying because it’s easy to do.�

Michael Thomas, a meteorologist for the Connecticut Weather Center in Danbury, can perhaps understand the concept of what might be called �snow rage� even if he’d never heard the phrase. He said, �I think southeastern Connecticut is looking at five to eight inches of snow with this storm. I was already tired of (snow) last month. Now I hate it.�

Meteorologists say they take their forecasts seriously.

�People should understand that a storm like the one headed our way is my Super Bowl or my Oscars,� Fox said. �It’s really important to us to get it right. There is no upside to making an inaccurate forecast. This is where we make friends or enemies.�

Perhaps it’s possible to do both.

Last week, after several more inches of snow, Fox and his boss received �incredibly irate� e-mails from a viewer in Gales Ferry. The guy was mad because, after the station’s forecast called for snow, his caf� lost business and his son’s wrestling practice was canceled.

�I wrote back and said I didn’t cause the snow,� Fox said. �In the meantime, my boss, who never throws an e-mail away, remembered the guy’s name from an earlier communication and sent a return e-mail: �I’m really surprised to hear from you since you wrote in 2002 and said you’d never watch us again. So it’s good to have you back.’ �